The Wall Script

In the beginning, there were six of them. They came from the corners of the realm, each with their own story and question. Seeking knowledge, a haven, a father, a way to explain why memories faded with every twist of the sun around the sky. What they sought was not easily revealed, and some say they pursued this for their entire life and never found a thing. Some say their success was the very thing that ripped them from their existence.

The first one to come was Braig. Carrying fishing lures upon the brim of his sleeve and speaking as though ‘friendly’ was the only language he knew, he became the first apprentice. He was only one who laughed for the sport of it, and his season was always young.

The second to make his way into the ranks of the apprentices was Dilan, who let his gracious ambivalence number the stars once, then twice over, searching for everything and nothing. He came to apply his hands to the grease and oil of mechanics, furthering his trade with engineering. It was Dilan who found Even, the skinny refugee with a house, but without a home. Despite the fact that he arrived with his hands covered in soot, Even was prideful, the sin that kept feeding itself; a hungry demon with eyes greener than any pigment from a bottle.

The protector of the weak was Elaeus, as he fought for those he towered over. He arrived shortly after Even, as the story is told, but no one seemed to notice until a few weeks later. Perhaps it was because he was too tall to see, and perhaps it was because he was almost too quiet to be heard. His salvation was Ienzo, the youngest of the apprentices. Ienzo gave him a voice. Unfortunately, the diminutive noble spun lies like thread and held his conscience at arms length.

The most unusual of the apprentices came to them in the middle of the night, asking whether or not the castle could be moved if the grass became clouds. Truly, Xehanort was the most curious of them all. Remembering nothing of the moment before he first opened sun-drenched eyes and looked upon Ansem the Wise in the castle doorway, he was naturally a strange, socially inept creature. Even studied him intently, no reprieve with the cold, impersonal questions. And, like a competitive ball match, Xehanort would throw questions right back. Infuriated, Even would snap, Elaeus would calm him, and Ienzo would watch with calculating eyes.

Young men in their own right, some younger than others, they scraped answers from the ink-stained pages of books, built towers of theories that touched the skies. Hearts, darkness, and shadows were their prerogative. It was Xehanort who never ceased with his questions and Socratic missions. And it was Xehanort who came to Ienzo, a creeping smile on his lips and a whisper worming its way into the boy’s ear. As if spurred on by destiny, it was Ienzo who pulled the strings, a puppet master, to manipulate Ansem, their master and father, to build a grand laboratory. Because young boys with innocence behind their eyes and did no wrong were so hard to say ‘no’ to.

Elaeus, Briag, Dilan, and Even stood by and watched—nay, assisted—as their comrades proved that even pure hearts could rot away and betray those they held dear. And betray they did.

They took hearts of all shapes and sizes, dreams and conscience, and let the darkness ravage them beyond the point of repair. Those hearts spackled the walls black and gold (gold, who would have ever guessed?) in the outlines of what once were people. And then, in a series of pulsing jerks, a clock hand underneath the glass, these hearts created shadows.

Shadows of people, shadows of hearts, shadows of darkness. Consuming and rolling their tongues upon the very essence of personhood, these shadows thrived upon the heart’s inner sanction of darkness. Xehanort had now stolen his Master’s name: Ansem, and performed his research under that pseudonym.

One night, a door gaped wide for them, an offer that none of the six of them could refuse. It promised knowledge and temped those who sought it. It was a bright promise that withered the second they opened the door. For, once it was opened, they were consumed. One by one, they watched themselves fall into the void, helpless, and become ripped in two. And, worst of all, they became empty.

What crawled from the ruins that day were not the six apprentices, but the shells that played their roles. And, as they would come to discover, they played their roles well, practiced actors as any.

Their Superior was Xemnas. The acronym of their old Master’s name passed down to a man too deep in absent memories to bring his eyes from the heavens. He sat in his throne, spinning nothingness between his fingers and rhyming with his one and only heart that hung in the sky. His Kingdom Hearts.

Braig soon became Xigbar, the Freeshooter. His voice still echoed that old, remaining vestiges of carefree, but it was just as empty to the ear as his chest was empty to the heart. Whistling words of half-lies and unaccounted smiles, his rank meant nothing in the eyes of others. When he was serious, the weight of his words were taken into account, but he was hardly that. One could never take a man who walked on the ceilings seriously.

The man who was once Dilan became Xaldin. Lances sprung to his fingertips, floating in storm as if on strings. And yet with the grace and ease upon which he controlled such deadly mechanics, it was easy to entitle him the Whirlwind Lancer. Though he spoke only when spoken to and reverted into himself, he seemed most at ease with what he had become. As if he knew nothing would drag his shell into the light ever again.

No one really liked Even and, following suit, no one liked Vexen, supplementarily named the Chilly Academic. As his somebody had been that cold, calculating man with little joy for comforts beyond the soft bubbling of a subliming substance, he wielded ice as an element. Preferring the basements where he could avoid those who ridiculed him, he stayed to knot his bony fingers in the hems of science’s grand robes.

Lexaeus was what Elaeus had become. The quiet young male had grown up, finding his place as a man. Even with his size, the halls he walked became no less empty as he went through them, never leaving a trace or a sound, a mountain of rock over a thousand years of travel. Solely a protector, a guardian, the Silent Hero.

Nimble-minded, clever Zexion soon became one of the Superior’s favorites. The Cloaked Schemer, he was called. Piercing, half-lidded eyes flitted over open books as he sat in chairs that barely accommodated his height, feet never brushing the ground. Nothing pleased him more than solving puzzles with no answers, except perhaps turning said puzzles on their heads and offering them to others with open palms, illusions clouding the way his thin, child-like lips curved up.

Ah, but then others came to their order. Their Organization was not just composed of ill-fated apprentices. As worlds fell apart, so did the people in them. Crumbling down, tearing in half…under the light of Kingdom Hearts, Xemnas first laid eyes upon the ragged sole remnant of something beyond a destroyed world. His name was Isa.

Isa curled and twisted, every movement pulled taught. Xemnas took great pleasure in naming him Saïx, his most devoted follower. Brilliant yellow eyes attested to some assumptions of a demonic history, coupled with the berserker frenzies the man would fall into. As if forgetting himself, any snap of a string could send him into a rage, fueled by the brilliant moon in the sky; Kingdom Hearts. At any other time, however, he was forcedly calmed, placidity on the surface of a raging maelstrom fighting to break loose. As if some sort of man of fortunes, he was called the Lunar Diviner.

As worlds were continuing to be devoured, more empty bodies were presented to the Organization. Lea was one of them. As if his fall from grace was but a holiday, Axel approached every situation with a grin and a careless remark. His face painted with clown’s diamonds, his hair throttled in red, every spark grew to become a wildfire in his hands, feeding his namesake; The Flurry of Dancing Flames. And his spinning grace became wheels of destruction, as if there were last relics of wrath inside him that hadn’t eked out yet, even without a heart. It was like he knew he would become the traitor, as he was many things. The clown, the jester, the fool, the murderer, the traitor, the sacrifice.

Like the sea offered Venus upon the earth, Myde was borne upon the Organization. He opened his eyes and in them was the ocean, drawn out for miles upon miles, endless, each wave as new and exciting as the last. He was tireless, extroverted, and mild, making him one of the few of those empty people who could laugh and actually believe he meant it. He believed that his emotions were true, consequently putting the Organization’s scientists at odds with what they considered a daft member.  For him, some considered pity. Others considered jealousy. Most of them claimed he was incompetent and clouded and that his music was far too life-like. The Melodious Nocturne was put away, but he still sung like a bird.

No one knew Luxord’s true name, and no one would ever be told. It made him believe he had a leg-up over the others in some sense, though he recognized it was petty. For a man who wound up clocks and watched them tick away, he had an immense amount of wisdom. This was probably because he had the ability to wind them back and watch them tick again, stopping them with a flick of an ace into the void. He saw from a distance, he saw from up-close. He saw at every angle, and he watched everything play out in front of him over and over again. He was called the Gambler of Fate for a number of reasons, but none of them had to do with him being fickle with his future. He was the sort of man that knew the whole deck before he played his hand. He was called the Gambler of Fate first and foremost because playing a game of cards with him was most folly.

A shadow cast itself over the Organization the day Marluxia arrived at the door. Stepping on petals, he offered his hand and in it was a bruised, crushed cherry blossom. He was an emblem of death, a lovelier sibling to the grim reaper, scythe encrusted with delightful pink hues instead of blood. But no less deadly, as he was the Graceful Assassin. Pink rosebud lips offered nothing but his sincere condolences as bones creaked under the pressure of constricting vines. His eyes held cruelty and ambition that one might not expect from someone so feminine and frosted with flowers (they followed him everywhere; his smell, the buds that seemed to burst and ripen with his every movement, the tenacity of a small sprout in the dark). But that was just it; he was a Venus Fly Trap waiting for someone to fall for his sweet delicacy, a row of open teeth waiting.

No better was Larxene. The Savage Nymph was quickly named. She was the only woman to have raised her head, and she raised it proudly. Her sadism was the spark in her eyes, the electric tingle at her fingertips. There was no other way to describe how she threw herself into violent passion-play, soft cheeks glowing with the delight of her cruel mirth. Tips of knives were her tongue and fingers, lavishing blood upon those she could make squirm. No laugh, not here nor there, could contend with the noise that sprung from her throat, containing all the rage of a miniature dog screaming for its next meal. Shrieks rising from her pillared neck as she threw her head back where many-a-time the last thing an unfortunate creature would see and hear.

The seal upon the Organization bore something that no one else could; two keyblades, extended as arms at his side. Roxas was the Key of Destiny, equipped with something more than any other member had. As if he was an adult already, he took to frowning as quickly as he came to walk the halls of their empty domain. And from him, light was cast upon their demise. If a Nobody could ever be special, he was.

Then there were then thirteen of them. Organization XIII was born. It never entirely functioned, and neither was it composed with any sort of method behind its members. In retrospect, it was rather comprised of lost souls and nothing more.

Though Xemnas sat tall, there had always been rumors of conspiracy. Perhaps he knew about them with his ever-seeing eyes of sunset, perhaps he didn’t. Perhaps that was why he called upon one of the neophytes to take into his hands Castle Oblivion, a new location for which selected members would continue toward their collective goal. It was in this castle that to find was to lose, and to lose was to find. Ensnaring the Keyblade Bearer, Sora, was what the castle sought, eking of darkness and swollen memories. Though the title was misleading, the Keyblade Bearer was but an adolescent; a boy with a purpose and child -like ambitions chosen by the weapon itself. He was searching for something of his own that was lost, but in his journey, the Organization sought to use him as their own.

Inside Castle Oblivion was a witch. This witch was a pawn, a device. Sometimes she drew truth on paper. Sometimes she drew lies. And on the witch’s shoulder sat a heavy hand, laced with thorns. Marluxia had become the Lord of Castle Oblivion, a title that suited the way he prowled the empty, white hallways and beyond. Under him, Axel and Larxene followed, but one of them had a different agenda.

In the dark realms of the basement lurked the other three inhabitants. Vexen (who complained that no one held any respect for him, probably displeased with having to move, as Nobodies are creatures of habit) and Lexaeus (who followed his diminutive master faithfully, his loyalty unwavering), both standing alongside Zexion, the Leader of the Underground. It was dark and they were cautious of the castle’s Lord, for they knew of the vines that were slowly swallowing each room, each hallway. In this way, the politics of the Organization were made bristlingly apparent, senior members of the original six apprentices against neophytes.

As the Keyblade Bearer ascended into Castle Oblivion, the links in his memories being manipulated by Marluxia’s imprisoned witch, another presence began descending. Vexen found him intriguing and created a replica of that presence (which, as they had soon learned, was Riku, a friend of the Keyblade Bearer, lost and struggling with the darkness inside him). What a bother, how useless. How dangerous…

It was Vexen who meddled too far into Marluxia’s plans. He nearly succeeded in snapping the Rosed Assassin’s fingers from the Keyblade Bearer altogether, to keep him from using Sora as his puppet and becoming his pawn in this grand plot to overthrow the Organization. But this was not tolerated: Axel was sent to murder the senior member, and murder he did, right before the Keyblade Bearer’s eyes.

The second to die was Larxene, out-battled, no matter how much fury was struggling to become real inside her. Incinerated by her own lighting, she faded and left nothing behind.

Even with two deaths (or what amounted to deaths when the beings in question did not even exist), no one was shaken. Except perhaps Zexion when he made the decision to send Lexaeus to fight Riku. Whether Zexion knew he would be sending Lexaeus to his death or not…the schemer dared not answer that inquiry, even to himself. The man who moved mountains faded away, and Zexion was left alone. It was then that the Castle gave forth a great cry of defeat, offering up its own Lord to protect it.

And though Marluxia battled to protect all that he thought was rightfully his, he failed. He, too, faded leaving only a scattering of those same, crushed cherry blossoms to outline where his form once was before they were blown away.

Zexion heard the castle cry out as its Lord was in his death throes, and had to finish what was started. Riku was useless to him. Mind games rendered the boy weak, bringing him to his knees. It was almost impossible, then, that he broke through them. It wounded Zexion, his illusions lying shattered around him. When he finally did escape with his life, however, he was met by Axel, the traitor, and the replica of the boy that had just brought his world down around his ears. Axel really was a traitor. It was him who turned Zexion’s (Ienzo’s) own specialty against him, whispering in the replica’s ear that he could be real and whole, if he only absorbed the wounded man before them. The last thing Zexion remembered was a coiled hand around his neck, and the disturbing thought that he was being murdered. Him, of all people. And only one would make it out alive...

Axel went back to Xemnas, claiming he had rid the place of traitors. If only Castle Oblivion hadn’t been so divided; if only they hadn’t been such fools. If greed had been an emotion tossed to the wayside, none of that would have happened. But it was. And perhaps this is why we failed.